NAFEMS benchmark validation
The NAFEMS problems are the standard answer to "is this solver trustworthy?". FEA Lab ships them as a runnable suite, not a claim in a brochure.
What the suite covers
LE1 elliptic membrane, Cook's membrane, the pinched cylinder with mixed membrane/bending elements, quarter-patched plate, MITC4 shell formulations, distributed loading, and plasticity equivalence cases. Each case declares its reference values, so the comparison is against published data rather than a stored answer key.
Why it matters for pinching
The pinched cylinder is the classic shell benchmark because it is brutally sensitive: the same geometry gives a different answer depending on whether bending and membrane response are locked correctly. Shell8C is FEA Lab's best available formulation, and the pinched cylinder remains the open case — reported honestly rather than quietly excluded.
Keep exploring
Open the interactive workspace — mesh, solve, validate and export in the browser.
Start a guided solve